Welcome to the inaugural postseason of this article series. In this article series, I am going to break down each playoff game on the slate based purely on pitch profile match-ups. The goal of this series is to locate the gems for our smaller slate/single-game slate contests that can provide an edge and lead us to some GPP takedowns! My name is Eric aka @Razzle11Grinds on Twitter, make sure to give me a follow as I’ll occasionally make updates to the advice in the article out on Twitter as well as inside our coaching forums. With that said, let’s get it started!
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Before I get started. Let’s take a look at the colors that you will see below. When you see numbers highlighted in red, they are numbers that benefit the pitcher. Numbers highlighted in blue are ones that benefit the hitter, while the ones that are left white are in a middling range that might give a very slight edge to the hitters.
Houston Astros @ Tampa Bay Rays
Welcome to the ALCS, which is being played in San Diego at PetCo Park. Game 3 of the series will see Jose Urquidy take on Ryan Yarbrough. The Tampa Bay Rays are a -112 favorite and the game has a total set at 8.5 runs.
We see that the Astros aren’t as impressive against LHPs for some reason. Despite being pretty RH heavy overall, the team has a decent amount of red above. A guy like Gurriel has always been best against RHPs but his profile here lines him up pretty well and he does have an HR against Yarbrough. A guy who might be sneaky here is Kyle Tucker in a LvL situation. We see that Yarbrough throws his sinker-curve combination 83% of the time to LHBs. Tucker has done a TON of damage to those two pitches from LHPs. I can see a route to success for Springer, Altuve, and Bregman but I am not enamored with their chances.
For Yarbrough, it’s going to come down to the use of his sinker. He has allowed LHBs an XwOBA of .424 and an XwOBA of .507 to RHBs. They have ISOs of .216 and .286 against it, respectively.
The Rays are striking out a TON as we saw McCullers rack up the Ks in Game 2. We don’t have much history to go off of here but there is plenty of blues to take a look at. Guys like Meadows and Lowe are in great spots as LHBs, while Zunino has a really nice profile and he hit a LONG HR yesterday. That screams wrap stack to me! We know Arozarena will be popular and Kiermaier has an intriguing profile as well. ***NO ZUNINO FOR THE RAYS!***
The key for Urquidy is going to be his fastball. He throws it a ton and while it isn’t overpowering, he really needs it to set-up his change/curve. He has allowed XwoBA’s of .354 and .432 to LH and RHBs, respectively.
Atlanta Braves @ Los Angeles Dodgers
Welcome to the NLCS, we get to see the Braves and Ian Anderson take on the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw in Game 1. This series is being played in Arlington, Texas (Texas Rangers). The Dodgers are -166 favorites and the game has a total set at 8 runs. ***CLAYTON KERSHAW SCRATCHED!! TONY GONSOLIN WILL START IN HIS PLACE***
Now that we get Kershaw scratched, we see Gonsolin steps in as the SP. We get the same two guys at the top, Acuna, and Freeman, who have strong profiles. Guys like Ozuna and d’Arnaud are decent options for us. The guys that it hurts are Albies and Riley as they had sneaky good spots against Kershaw but now aren’t anywhere near as solid.
The key for Gonsolin will be his fastball against both sides of the plate. He has allowed ISOs of .211 and .257 to LH and RHBs, respectively with that pitch.
WOW, we see quite a bit of blue again today. Anderson has been really impressive but we have to remember that he is extremely raw and can lose his control at any point. Even with all that blue, we only see one batter with 3 excellent columns. That batter is Cody Bellinger, who has struggled in 2020. I still trust the profile here so he is going to end up one of my top plays. The other guys that I really want to be above the field on are Corey Seager and AJ Pollock. Both guys have really solid profiles, especially against the secondary pitch that Anderson uses most against their handedness. I know that Turner has 2 “neutral” pitches but they are pretty close to being strengths for him in this match-up.
Unfortunately, we don’t have much to work with when it comes to Anderson’s pitch profile history. When we look at his small season numbers, we see that he’s allowed more power to RHBs so that should make things interesting tonight.
There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the debut of the Pitch Profile Breakdown article! If you have any questions make sure you tag me in the chat. We can discuss thoughts on individual match-ups! As you can see, there are paths to success for each team playing today!
